


i know i could lie

by susiecarter



Series: wherever i go [3]
Category: The Great Wall (2017), The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Fuckbuddies, Getting Back Together, Hand Jobs, M/M, Mission Fic, Past Relationship(s), Pining, Post-Season/Series 01, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:36:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28585857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiecarter/pseuds/susiecarter
Summary: It didn't take them too long to reach Ssasshtra, in the end.The approach to Taos Station was long and empty; it wasn't in orbit of anything, no planet or moon to hide behind, not even a handy asteroid. The station itself had mass enough to form a half-decent gravity well, but none of the junk that was orbitingitwas much bigger than about the size of the kid.Nothing for it but to fly straight in, and hope nobody decided to shoot them out of the sky.(Or: the Mandalorian and William Garin continue to try to figure each other out, and also start banging again.)
Relationships: William Garin (The Great Wall)/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Series: wherever i go [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1817875
Comments: 13
Kudos: 33





	i know i could lie

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Brenda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brenda/gifts).



> Happy birthday, Brenda! 2020 was not a year in which I was going to be able to get it together enough to finish extra parts of this series for you, but here's hoping I can hit some quarter-birthdays in 2021. :D You are great and you should feel great, and I count myself beyond lucky to know you. ♥ ♥ ♥!
> 
> The species is rare enough that I didn't think Will would know the name, but for the record, in my heart Ssasshtra Sai is a [Neti](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Neti). (I know she's not canon anymore, but I love T'ra Saa, dammit.) The crystal is a [kyber](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Kyber_crystal), and [tooke](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Tooke) are super cute. Taos Station was apparently the original name for [Faos Station](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Faos_Station), so I used it for this completely non-canonical setup. Mirialans and their varied appearance/homeworld/tattoos are canon. Everything else in here, I made up (though the OC's last name deliberately implies a possible relation to [a minor character](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Cyslin_Myr)).

It didn't take them too long to reach Ssasshtra, in the end.

The approach to Taos Station was long and empty; it wasn't in orbit of anything, no planet or moon to hide behind, not even a handy asteroid. The station itself had mass enough to form a half-decent gravity well, but none of the junk that was orbiting _it_ was much bigger than about the size of the kid.

Nothing for it but to fly straight in, and hope nobody decided to shoot them out of the sky.

"You've got codes?" the Mandalorian said.

"I've got—a code," Will hedged.

The helmet faced him for a long moment, and then turned away. Will liked to imagine the Mandalorian was rolling his eyes under there.

There was no one operation running out of Taos Station. It had been one of the earliest outposts abandoned by the Empire, and what had been the Rebellion had called that a victory but hadn't bothered with it for long, both for the same reason: it was basically in the middle of nowhere. Ssasshtra had laid claim to half a tier, before Will had ever met her, and nobody had managed to win a fight with her for it. But that didn't mean there weren't a dozen others who'd be more than happy to blow the _Razor Crest_ into pieces and then collect them for salvage.

Already there were at least twenty different comm channels open from the station, half of them threats, another third questions; one was just music, at a volume that made Will grimace, and another sounded like someone offering them millions of credits for a ride to a planet Will had never heard of.

Will took the _Razor Crest_ 's comm, and sent the code he had. Probably out of date, by now, since Ssasshtra liked to change them regularly, but that didn't mean she wouldn't accept it—she just enjoyed being able to keep track of who knew what and when they'd learned it, that was all.

The Mandalorian muted everything else. It was silent, for a long moment.

And then there was a crackle, and Ssasshtra said, "Garin."

She had a rough, scraping, creaking voice, inimitable, and Will smiled to hear it. "Ssasshtra," he said, and he tried to say it the way she did, with a whistle like wind through the sibilants, and was rewarded with a grudging rustle.

"You idiot," she said, but Will liked to think it wasn't without warmth. "Where have you been?"

"Around," Will said, with a laugh. "Listen—"

Ssasshtra cut him off with a faint groan. "You want a job," she finished for him.

"This would be easier in person," Will mused. "Then you'd be melting under the force of my winning smile."

"Would I," she muttered, and then sighed. "Whose ship is that?"

Will looked at the Mandalorian. The Mandalorian looked back.

"It belongs to a friend," Will said quietly.

"And your friend's letting you use it?"

"He's taken me on for a while."

"You owe him money," Ssasshtra assessed.

"I owe him money," Will agreed.

"And you, Garin's friend—you want a job, too?"

The Mandalorian turned his head, looked down at the comm console. "We're partners," he said. "One job's enough."

His voice was even, inflectionless, impossible to read into. But the words were enough; Will smiled, helpless to prevent it.

"One job," Ssasshtra repeated. "All right. You're lucky I like you, Garin."

The job wasn't a bounty.

Not exactly. Not the kind that came with a chain code, anyway. The Mandalorian had asked for one, and Ssasshtra had laughed, low and swishing like wind in leaves. It wasn't that official. She had a name and a location, a personal image, the client's requirements for proof of the kill; she'd sent them over to the _Razor Crest_ in a data transfer, and wished them luck, and then the comm channel had cut, quick as that.

"Efficient," the Mandalorian said, after a moment.

"See? I told you you'd like her," Will said. "She's a tree."

The Mandalorian looked at him. "A tree."

"Some kind of plant, anyway," Will amended. "Winds herself up into a smaller shape so she can talk, look people in the eye, that sort of thing. But you should see her when she's angry—taller than the _Crest_ , when she wants to be."

He reached out and touched the console, brought up the data: the personal image sprang to life, projected in close-set blue lines.

"Mirialan," the Mandalorian said.

"Yeah, I see them," Will agreed, because he did—tattoos, blocked out across the cheekbones and up the brow from the bridge of the nose, the stark geometric shapes Mirialans favored. "Says the client's afraid for his life. Thinks—" He skimmed down a little further through the rest of the data file. "Thinks Nimara Myr here is planning to track him down and kill him; wants her taken out before she can. Apparently she's got some kind of necklace, never takes it off. Full reward payment's contingent on delivery of the body, but he'll still pay half for the necklace only. Last known location is Juujuutta."

"Not far," the Mandalorian said, and then paused. "Your contact knew this was your kind of job."

Will flushed, looking away, and cleared his throat. Playing the hero, that was what the Mandalorian meant. And the worst part was that he was probably right; there was a decent chance Ssasshtra had noticed the way Will used to react when she offered him contracts from the Hutts or the Broken Horn. She hadn't tried to hand him one of those in a while. He'd assumed it was because the war, the Rebellion, had gotten in the way of business. But maybe he'd been wrong.

"The reward's pretty high," he said, which wasn't exactly a counterargument.

The Mandalorian was quiet, for so long Will had to look at him again. The helmet, of course, gave away nothing, and Will couldn't help wondering what kind of look was on the Mandalorian's face under there—what kind of face it was.

"Of course," the Mandalorian said; and then he turned back to the console to set a course for Juujuutta.

Juujuutta was only a handful of systems away. Will had never been there before. It was tiny, boring, not so much as a moon or a ring—just quietly orbiting its star by itself, a dank unremarkable green. Not much traffic, and the lone spaceport was on the other side of the planet from the coordinates they'd been given for Nimara Myr.

It was, Will couldn't help but think, an odd place for anyone who was on their way to murder a client from the galactic core to be.

But perhaps Nimara Myr was trying to stay undetected. Perhaps she had contacts there, supplies or a weapons stash or backup waiting to be recruited. There was no telling, and finding out wasn't the job.

The Mandalorian brought the _Razor Crest_ down on a ridge, far enough from the coordinates that Nimara Myr wouldn't see them coming but close enough for the distance to be navigable on foot. It was narrow, steep—practically an arête, jutting up raggedly from the middle of the jungle that just about covered Juujuutta.

The atmosphere had looked thick, full of haze, and it had felt like it, too, on the way down, the hull hot and the ride turbulent. Will was braced for it, and yet he still drew back with a grimace when the Mandalorian opened up the cargo ramp. The air was heavy, damp, promising rain, and excessively warm for Will's taste. He was going to be sweating fit to drown himself after about ten steps.

He bit down on a sigh, and turned to look at the Mandalorian. "I'll go scout it out," he said. "If she's already gone, we'll need to change tacks, ask around. You stay with the kid."

No way the Mandalorian was going to argue with that division of labor, Will thought; and sure enough, after a moment the Mandalorian inclined his head.

"Don't get shot," he said.

"Psh," Will said. "When have I ever gotten shot?"

The Mandalorian looked at him, and then at his shoulder, where there was technically still a hole in his leathers thanks to Tammaran Madari's guards, and then at him.

"Without _intending_ to," Will clarified. "I took that bolt on purpose."

The Mandalorian allowed a beat of eloquent silence. "Right," he said.

Will grinned. "Don't cook in that tin pot of yours," he said in turn, and reached up to clonk his knuckles against the Mandalorian's helmet.

"I'll do my best," the Mandalorian agreed, dry as dust, and Will was still laughing when he reached the end of the ramp and stepped down into the dirt.

He didn't feel like laughing anymore when he got back.

It had been around the middle of Juujuutta's day when they'd landed; by the time he'd scaled the ridge again, it was full dark. The air was cooler, but no drier, and he'd have been brimming over with complaints about it if he weren't too preoccupied to care.

The Mandalorian had the ramp down and the cargo bay lights on. The _Razor Crest_ looked clean and comfortable and dry, compared to the jungle Will had been tromping his way through for half the day, and Will found his steps slowing without his permission, gazing into that cool bright space, the Mandalorian's armor glinting where he sat and the kid on the floor next to him, clutching something that was a familiar shade of pink.

Will swallowed, and kept walking.

The Mandalorian looked up as Will drew close, though he'd probably heard Will coming much earlier. Will stepped up onto the ramp and said, "We're fine. She's still here."

He kept his tone even. He didn't let the look on his face change. But the Mandalorian didn't answer for a long moment; and when he did, what he said was, "Is that so."

It didn't sound like a question, the way he said it. But Will nodded anyway, as though he hadn't noticed.

"Yeah," he said. "Just her, too. It'll be easy."

The Mandalorian looked at him. The kid did, too, which was worse. Toward the end, Will had gotten pretty good at lying to the Mandalorian, covering up all his qualms and second-guessing, all the places where he was raw and cracking open. But the Mandalorian didn't have ears the size of his face, huge round black eyes that blinked in innocent confusion.

(Or if he did, he'd never shown them to Will. Same difference.)

"Garin," the Mandalorian said, quiet.

"What?" Will snapped, and then winced, because that really wasn't the right way to convince the Mandalorian nothing was up.

"This seemed like your kind of job, before. What changed?"

Will bit down on the inside of his cheek, and looked away.

On the one hand: there were so many ways in which the Mandalorian was the same as he'd always been. The armor, even if it hadn't been beskar before; the vocoder, the expressionless helmet. His weapons, the way he handled them, the way he spoke and moved and carried himself. On the other hand—

On the other hand, the Mandalorian had the child now. He hadn't actually said a word about Will acting like an idiot to save the kid. Far from it. He had a floating bassinet. He'd exchanged his own actual money for a _toy_. Right this second, even, he was sitting on the floor of the cargo bay because he'd been watching the kid play.

And he'd come and saved Will's ass on Tarchen. He'd called them partners.

If that didn't actually mean anything, Will thought, then it was best he found that out now.

"Nimara Myr," he said aloud. "Mando, she's—she doesn't have a bolthole here. She isn't picking up supplies or weapons. She isn't after anybody." He made himself look up. "She lives here."

"She was Red Fury," the Mandalorian said. "A pirate. The data transfer included her list of crimes against the New Republic."

"Sure," Will said, because he'd seen that part too. "But what was the date on the last entry on that list? People change, Mando."

The Mandalorian fell silent.

"We're taking the client's word for it," Will said, "that she's after him. This isn't like your bounties. There's no guild backing Ssasshtra. She doesn't have the resources to confirm every job's legit; she does what she can to guarantee payment, and she doesn't take on clients she knows she can't trust. But this—" He shook his head. "On paper, it looks fine. You'd never know the difference unless you'd come here looking for her."

"And you've decided you do know the difference," the Mandalorian said evenly, "because whatever's at those coordinates looks to you like a home."

Will shifted his weight, and shuffled his feet, and coughed.

"Garin, what did you do?"

"I—might have pretended to be a traveler making my way through the jungle," Will admitted. "Trying to find my brother, who'd come here last I heard to hide from the Empire."

The Mandalorian's helmet took on a faintly judgmental angle.

"She gave me water," Will said. "Told me how to get to the nearest river, that I could follow it to a village if I went far enough. She wasn't packing up, she doesn't own a speeder bike. She didn't threaten to kill me, not once." He bit his lip. "This job—it doesn't feel right, Mando."

He found, to his distant surprise, that he didn't know what to expect. Half of him was still expecting the Mandalorian to chide him for being foolish, naive; to tell him to get his head on straight and do as he'd agreed. But there had to be a chance. He'd just said it himself: _people change_.

The child cooed. The Mandalorian looked down at him, reached out one-handed, and the child giggled and closed his hand around one of the Mandalorian's gloved and armored fingers.

"Some jobs," the Mandalorian said slowly, "aren't worth doing. If you don't like who you'll be when the job is over—it doesn't matter what it pays."

Will blinked.

That wasn't the last thing he'd ever expected to hear the Mandalorian say to him. But it was pretty damned close.

"Not," the Mandalorian added, "that you're off the hook for the rest of what you owe me."

Will felt himself start to smile. Stupid, stupid; but there was something light and warm and soft expanding its way through his chest, and he couldn't make it stop. "Right," he managed. "Of course." He cleared his throat. "So—what are we going to do?"

Nimara Myr had built herself a house in a clearing, which wasn't precisely a clearing so much as it was the space beneath one of the huge old trees, emptied of the fierce thick undergrowth that Will had spent the previous day stumbling his way through.

Ths time, it was an easier trek, given that he could follow his own trail. And the Mandalorian was right behind him—probably stewed to soup in all that armor, but he wasn't making a single noise of complaint, because he was the Mandalorian.

The kid was back on the _Razor Crest_. The Mandalorian hadn't wanted to leave him locked in there alone, free to mess with anything that caught his eye; but he hadn't wanted to bring the kid along either, in case they decided to shoot Myr in the head after all. The _Razor Crest_ had internal atmosphere control, plus the kid's entire stack of toys. He was going to be six times as comfortable as they were, and he was going to have a lot more fun, too.

Nimara was sitting outside when they got there. She'd just gone out into the forest, looked like: she had a big basket full of fruit, and she was picking through it for the ones that were bruised, or not ripe enough.

She looked up and went still, the kind of still the Mandalorian went when something happened that he wasn't expecting. Her hands went to her hips; she had a gleaming blaster holstered on one and a big long knife sheathed on the other.

She was so violet a purple that she was almost blue, the bluest Will had ever seen a Mirialan, and her eyes were even bluer than that. The personal image hadn't really captured that. The black tattoos across her cheeks and forehead still stood out dark, though, and her hair was almost exactly the same as it had been in the image, cropped close on the sides and braided down the center.

"You," she said, jaw tight.

And okay, yes, coming back with reinforcements after claiming to have just been passing through probably wasn't the least suspicious thing Will could've done.

"Hey, whoa," he said, and lifted his hands, palm-out. "Hold on, hold on. I just want to talk."

Her gaze went over his shoulder to the Mandalorian. "Sure. And so does he?"

Which was fair enough. The armor was pretty distinct, and Mandalorians weren't really known for exercising their social skills before they started shooting.

"Yes," Will said anyway. "I give you my word. He's not going to shoot you unless you give him a reason."

"Right," Myr said, dripping with skepticism. But she didn't draw, and the Mandalorian stayed where he was, poised at Will's shoulder, Amban rifle slung over his back.

"You—seem like you might have a guess as to why we're here," Will said.

Myr snorted, a wry huff of breath through her nose. "You could say that. Parrick Valus," she spat.

"There wasn't a name attached to the files," Will told her. "Nobody wants to get robbed for their reward money before the job's done."

Her mouth twitched. "Smart."

"But whoever put us on you, he says you're a danger to him and his. Says you're coming for him."

She looked at Will, and then away. Her shoulders dropped; all at once, she looked tired.

"Sounds like him," she said. "Probably sent out a dozen more besides you."

Will angled a glance over his shoulder at the Mandalorian. That didn't sound good.

"If you've been given files, then you know who I am, what I did. I was dangerous, and everybody knew it."

"Killed ten with six shots," the Mandalorian said.

Myr's mouth twisted, a smile except in all the ways it wasn't. "Yeah," she agreed. "But I don't do that anymore. I don't want to. That's why I came here. I'm done."

She let her hands drop from her hips as she said it, slid them forward along her thighs until she was resting with her forearms on her knees. Not a good position. She wasn't going to be able to straighten up and get a hand on her blaster again very quickly, like that. Like she meant it as proof: she wasn't going to let herself shoot them first, even if part of her hadn't been able to help but get ready to.

"But this Parrick Valus wants you dead anyway," Will said.

Myr shifted one shoulder in half a shrug. "Tying up loose ends," she said. "He paid me off once, me and my crew, to go after a pair of transports. We got to loot everything we wanted, as long as we killed everybody on board."

Will swallowed.

"And you did it," the Mandalorian said steadily.

Myr didn't look away from him this time. "Yeah," she said quietly. "I did. If you want to shoot me for that, fine. But don't do it for Valus."

The Mandalorian didn't move, for a long moment.

And then he did—reached up and back, caught the rifle in his hands and pulled it forward over his shoulder, brought it down and fired.

Myr didn't flinch.

The shot didn't hit her. It hit the basket in front of her. The whole thing disintegrated, sending yellow and purple and orange fruit rolling every which way.

Will's breath, caught for an instant in the back of his throat, rushed free, and he turned to stare at the Mandalorian.

"This rifle can track its shots, if necessary," the Mandalorian said, lifting it again to return it to its former position on his back. "It'll log the coordinates of a shot fired, and the approximate dimensions of whatever it hit."

And that basket, Will thought, had been about the size Nimara Myr might be, if she were seated on the ground with her knees to her chest.

"Good thing it doesn't track mass," he muttered, and then turned to Myr and took a step forward. "You'll have to move. In case someone else gets here before we have the chance to turn the data in to the client. And—you've got a necklace. Right?"

Myr gave him a long steady look, and then reached up and hooked a finger around a cord that looped her throat. She pulled, and sure enough, there was a pendant hanging from it, lifting out from under the loose collar of her shirt. Matched the description in the files: a crystal, an odd warm green, glowing faintly from somewhere inside itself.

"If we can take it in, that'll count as delivery," Will explained. "Half payment."

For the first time, Myr looked uncertain. She closed her hand around the crystal, mouth pressed into a tight line. "I can't," she said, and then bit her lip. "Not—not if you're going to give it to him."

Will shared a glance with the Mandalorian.

"We'll try not to," he offered after a moment. "We'll tell him we want to keep it as a trophy. Something. Or—"

"Garin," the Mandalorian said, half a warning.

"—we'll steal it back if we have to," Will said anyway, because they probably could if they tried.

Myr met his eyes. Her mouth had softened into a slant, almost a smile—a real one, this time. "Your word," she said.

"Yes," Will said.

And she drew it off over her head, stood and stepped over the spilled pile of fruit, and held it out.

It was strange, reaching for it. Will didn't know why. It was just a necklace. But there was some kind of—pressure to it, a feeling in the air he couldn't name. The glow inside the crystal had dimmed a little as Myr lifted it away from herself; but it grew again, brighter and brighter, as he lifted his hand toward it. Myr's eyes were going wide, and he closed his fingers around the crystal and found it warm. Warmer than it ought to be, he thought, even considering Myr had kept it tucked inside her shirt.

"Actually," she said slowly, looking at it lying there in his hand, "I'm not sure it'll let you give it away."

"What?" Will said, blank. "No. We'll bring it back to you—"

"No," Myr said. "Keep it."

She had to leave everything right where it was, if she was going to make it look like she'd disintegrated. Except the fruit; and she talked to the Mandalorian in low tones for a moment and then went into her house and came out with a stack of clothes, to shake loose and leave in a pile as if she'd been disintegrated right out of them.

It couldn't have been easy, to abandon the house. It was solid, carefully-made, and it must have taken her quite some time to build on her own.

"I like it," she said, when Will awkwardly offered his sympathies. "But I like my life more."

"You probably don't need to leave the planet," he said, a clumsy second-place prize. "If anybody thinks you might still be alive, they'll expect you to head as far away from Juujuutta as you can get. If—you like it here—"

He trailed off. He was pretty sure his tone had given away that he didn't really think anybody could; he felt beyond disgusting, sticky and sweaty, hair binding itself into increasingly curly strings thanks to the sheer humidity.

She gave him a sideways look. "You've never been to Mirial, have you?"

"No," Will allowed.

"Well, trust me," she said. "I came here for a reason. I came here so I would never be cold again."

"In that case," Will said, plucking helplessly at his collar in the vain hope of circulating a little air against his skin, "you picked the perfect planet."

The hike back up the ridge was bearable only because Will knew it would be the last time he'd have to do it. He'd planned to go straight for the fresher, to beat the Mandalorian to it no matter what it took; but he was stopped in his tracks in the middle of the cargo bay by the sight of the kid, fast asleep in the storage alcove that served as his bed, curled up comfortably in his pile of toys.

Will had to go stand by the wall for a moment, just looking down at his peaceful little face. In some inexplicable way, it made Will even more sure that they'd done the right thing. He wasn't sure he could have borne it, standing over the child like this if he'd shot someone in the head and then carried her body up here to stow it in carbonite.

He paused. He didn't know why, but he found himself reaching for the necklace, the crystal pendant, where he'd tucked it away to one side of his belt. He watched himself draw it out. And it was bright for him, brighter than it had been for Nimara Myr—but he lowered it toward the kid, heart in his throat, and it was like a star.

"What _is_ this thing?" he whispered, as if the kid knew the answer.

He didn't know whether it was the light or his voice that had woken the kid, but suddenly there were round dark eyes blinking sleepily up at him. The kid burbled and reached up, three fingers opening wide, and Will let the crystal settle into the kid's grip; that seemed to be exactly what the kid had wanted, because he promptly hugged it to himself, yawned a tiny yawn, and then fell back to sleep.

Will registered the sound of boots against the cargo bay floor too late to save himself—the Mandalorian had stopped at the top of the ramp, looking right at him, silent.

"Fresher!" Will blurted, and practically dove for it.

Water was better than sonics, but the _Razor Crest_ was too small to carry much of a supply, even with top-tier recycling; but sonics were better than nothing. Five minutes, and Will felt halfway clean again. Ten, and he was practically presentable.

The Mandalorian had closed the _Crest_ up tight again, and the interior atmosphere system was running at full blast. By the time Will had dressed again, he was almost chilly, which felt amazing.

He stepped out of the fresher, and looked around. The kid was still fast asleep, clutching the crystal. The Mandalorian was nowhere—had to be up in the cockpit, then, Will thought, and climbed the ladder.

"Guess we'll be splitting this one, too."

The Mandalorian turned in the pilot's chair and looked at him. "You got the necklace," he said. "That was the requirement given in the files."

"Yeah, but you took the shot," Will said, shrugging a shoulder, like it was only simple logic—like the only stake he had in cutting his own reward was the rueful regret of someone who wished he were making more credits than he was. "Proves you had a hand in the kill, or at least that's what the data will say." He kept his expression easy, relaxed, and resisted the urge to shift his weight; that would give him away in an instant. "So it'll probably take a couple more jobs to pay you back the rest of the way."

The Mandalorian didn't reply. The tension in Will's shoulders ratcheted itself tighter. He couldn't begin to guess which way the Mandalorian was leaning—had he caught on? Was he irritated by Will's transparency, Will's attempts to manipulate him? Or had he meant it, in his uncompromising Mandalorian way, when he'd called them partners? Did it make him angry, that Will was still bringing up the debt when the Mandalorian had intended for him to consider it wiped clean?

"I don't care whether you pay up," the Mandalorian said at last, strange and hoarse. "Stay."

Will swallowed hard. That was—that was more than he'd really been hoping for, and he didn't know what to do with it. He didn't know what to do with the sudden swell of relief flooding him from the inside out. "Mando," he said, inane.

"Stay," the Mandalorian said again, and then stopped, throat clicking, like maybe he'd had to swallow hard himself before he could get any more words out. "Will—"

Will felt a shiver trembling its way beneath the surface of his skin. He could count the number of times he'd heard that name in the Mandalorian's voice on one hand; it was abruptly too much to bear. He was still chilly, washed clean, but his face was hot, and he knew he'd flushed. The Mandalorian had infrared sensors in that damned helmet—there was no way he hadn't noticed. His breath was coming quick, too quick, and he couldn't—he had to—

He took an unsteady step, reached out and closed his hand around the beskar gauntlet enclosing the Mandalorian's forearm. And the Mandalorian let out a sharp rush of breath, and stood; turned toward him, not away, up and out of the pilot's chair.

There wasn't much space, with the console, the pilot's chair caught against the backs of the Mandalorian's knees. It didn't matter. They'd done this in tighter quarters—in tighter quarters, in the dark, when they were exhausted or bleeding or both.

The armor was the only thing that was really different, all that beautiful gleaming beskar smooth as silk under Will's hands. The belt was the same, the place where it unhitched still familiar against Will's fingertips when he hooked two fingers through the width of it. He pressed in, pulled sideways and then up, and it came apart, slid loosely down the Mandalorian's hips and then caught on the tops of his thigh plates.

Will paused then, breath held, waiting for a long cautious beat.

But the Mandalorian didn't move away, didn't shove him off or grab for the belt and buckle it back into place again. He stood there, silent. And then he closed a hand around Will's wrist. "Garin," he said, quiet and rough, like it had been scraped from his tongue.

Will tried on a smile. "Just like old times," he said, in the warm low tone that tended to work best in these situations. "Right?"

The Mandalorian's grip eased. Will didn't know whether that was good or bad, for a moment; but then the Mandalorian said, "Right."

So it had to be okay. Same rules they'd always operated under: a helping hand after a job. Not a big deal. Nothing that was going to interfere with the work. Nothing anyone had to take too seriously.

Will was just as good as he'd ever been at getting the Mandalorian's suit, his cloth underarmor, open—he'd mastered the motion of the wrist that would let him do it one-handed, and he grinned absently when he got it right immediately. He shoved his hand in, gripped the Mandalorian nice and tight. Was it strange to remember the shape of someone's cock, the weight of it? Probably it was, but then Will had never claimed to be anything else, and the Mandalorian never needed to know.

Will heard the sound he'd learned to identify as the Mandalorian hissing a harsh breath out from between gritted teeth. He stroked once, hard, and felt the sharp half-controlled stutter of the Mandalorian's hips, as satisfying a reaction to earn as it had always been.

"You still like it a little rough, huh," he murmured.

"And you still talk too much," the Mandalorian said.

Will laughed, and reached up with his other hand to find the curve of the Mandalorian's helmet. He'd always liked to do this, and the Mandalorian had never stopped him: drawing the Mandalorian's head toward him, pressing his forehead to the cool metal that covered the Mandalorian's. The closest he was ever going to get to a kiss, and he'd savored that secret meaning for longer than he was willing to admit to anyone except himself.

And the Mandalorian—the Mandalorian didn't seem to have forgotten how this worked, either. His gloved hand was efficient, no-nonsense, jerking the much simpler buckle on Will's belt apart and then diving below his waistband as soon as there was room enough for it.

Had it felt this good last time? Will gasped and swore and thought dimly that it couldn't have, or he'd never have stopped. He'd have followed the Mandalorian across the galaxy and back like a pet tooke begging for a treat.

Then again, last time he hadn't spent far too long thinking of the Mandalorian without seeing him, dreaming of him without touching him, systematically cramming every inch of himself with longing so it wouldn't spill out where it could be seen. That might have had something to do with it.

But now he had a second chance, he thought, squeezing his eyes shut. He had a second chance to reach out, to hold on—and maybe this time he'd manage not to let go.


End file.
